O perestrojke literaturno-chudozhestvennych organizacij. postanovlenie CK VKP(b) ot 23 aprelja 1932 g. [05-05-1932] - [D108]

Concise description of the directive:

The text of the Postanoveniye is quoted. The Central Committee states that in recent years, on the basis of the remarkable successes of socialist construction, a great quantitative and qualitative growth of literature and art has been achieved.

A few years ago, when there was still considerable influence of foreign elements in literature, especially those that had developed in the early years of the NEP, and the cadres of proletarian literature were still weak, the Party gave all the help it could to the creation and strengthening of weak proletarian organisations in the field of literature and art, in order to strengthen the position of proletarian writers and workers in the arts.
COMMENT: At present, while the representatives of proletarian literature and art have had time to grow and new writers and artists from the factories, mills and collective farms have come forward, the number of existing proletarian literary and artistic organisations (VOAPP, RAPP, etc.) is small, and this hinders the development of artistic creation. This circumstance creates the danger that these organisations turn from an instrument of maximum mobilisation of Soviet writers and artists around the tasks of socialist construction into an instrument to cultivate the isolation of the circle, to detach themselves from the political tasks of the present and from significant groups of writers and artists sympathetic to socialist construction.
Hence the need for an appropriate restructuring of literary and artistic organisations and a broadening of the base of their work.
On this basis, the Central Committee of the All-Union Bolshevik Communist Party decided to:
1. liquidate the existing proletarian writers’ organisations (VOAPP, RAPP, etc.);
2. unite all writers who support the Soviet power platform and strive to participate in socialist construction into a single union of Soviet writers.

Speeches by all delegates at the meeting, including: А. Efros and then S. Mstislavsky, who draw attention to the conclusions that the VSSP (Vserossiyskiy soyuz sovyetskikh pisateley) should draw from the directive. A. Efros states that the VSSP was not an active organisation. Now the responsibility of Soviet writers is particularly increasing. New working methods are needed. Those who think that the question of the hegemony of proletarian literature is outdated are mistaken. The Party demands a real organic reorganisation from the writers.